05-28 Great Day with Nathan & Annie

We have the Catholic Church to thank for a great day with Nathan and Annie. Monday was a holiday: Pentecost Monday. I don't even think Nathan's church mentioned it yesterday but on this Monday most/some of France has the day off.

AND American is remembering all of our soldiers who have served our country on this day as well.

So rather than working with Nathan and Annie we get to play with Nathan and Annie. Lucky us.

Annie invited us over for breakfast this morning and we brought along some laundry to get done while we eat and talk.

Breakfast of real French toast! In France. Ooh la la. We're done with everything by noon. We pack a picnic and head out for Berlaimont.

Nathan has been to every town within miles of his place so he knows a place we can go. It's perfect. Water, grass, and a boat lock! Simply marvelous.

We walk the canal for an hour and head back to the car. They dropped us off at the train station and we say our goodbyes.

We had such a wonderful peaceful time with them. Alas, we must board a train and head for Paris.

We arrive in Paris and find the Metro (subway) to our stop near the Notre Dame Cathedral. Finding our apartment is easy because I've Google Mapped it a few times and I know exactly where the building number is.

I called our landlord from the train (as she requested) so she knows I'll be there in 30 min but SHE takes 45 and we are sweltering in the hallway waiting for her.

The elevator is busted so we all walk up 6 flights of stairs with our luggage to the apartment. Who's hot NOW? Well, we're all adults so we're cordial, of course. Karen asks the pertinent questions. Laundry soap? Towels? Extra toilet paper?

It's probably 80 degrees in here and for some reason I wanna hold a conversation with the highly intelligent 9 year-old son she brought along with her. Karen was probably thinking - time to eat.

We pay her and they leave. Here is the all important bedroom comparison shot (since that's the photo we include in all of our hotel room opinions)

We finally get out of to lunch around 7pm and have a tastless Mexican-flavored Chicken sandwich. Well it sounded different, so we thought it might taste different. The only saving grace was that it was eaten on the River Seine. Ah, Paris.

We walked around the neighborhood for another 90 minutes and we discovered what a high class place we've bought into. Ferrari baby!

and then bought ice creams and ate them outside our building.